By opening the big round hatch in the back of the Fedinand, you can look inside the vehicle now. Well, then it shouldn´t be totally empty inside. So something of an interior is needed. Not a lot, but something that creates the right suggestion.

Now luckily Esci-Italeri provides some elements of the interior. A gun breech, ammoracks with grenades, a seat for the gunner and a floor. All very simple and not quite correct. But it appeared to be difficult to find good information on the interior of the Ferdinand.

So I used these as a source of inspiration for something that suggest a Ferdinand interior when you are peeking through the hatches.

I used the Esci gun breech and elaborated it with the iron bar protecting the crew from the recoiling breech. In the back left and right you see the two electromotors for the propulsion, made from a cut up ballpoint. Furthermore chairs for the crew and ammunition racks.

The interior of the front compartment is completely Esci. I only moved the bulkhead forward as it was placed too much backwards (You can still see the position lugs on the floor of the engine compartment.)

Dark grey as a primer.

Colours painted.

And a bit of weathering.

It was almost impossible to reach the forward compartment with my brush, so painting is not very neat there. The good news is however, that you can see hardly anything of it after closing the hull.

True! A real problem in 1/72 vehicle modeling. I build an Sdkfz 222 with a nice resin inside set. There is no top at these turret. I open both doors too.But finally it is hard to see anything. You have to take the whole Dio and turn it to see inside the vehicle.The best to get a view inside is to do a destroyed vehicle like I do with and Tank III and till jet not shown T34 turret.

Well done and paint the intestines of these elephant.Looking forward to your opinion of the L&L track.

Perhaps an impression of the back end could have been made before drilling it out. This could then have been used as a pattern to mould that hatch,back door end,and a casting made of green stuff could`ve been made.So it could have been hinged open when on display. BB

Beano Boy wrote:Perhaps an impression of the back end could have been made before drilling it out.

Thanks for the interesting suggestion Beano. But a simple part like this is easier to reconstruct by scratchbuilding than by casting or impression IMHO. And moreover the Esci hatch is not of very high quality.

Humbrol 94 for Dunkelgelb. The sand coloured plastic significantly improves the opacity of the paint, compared to the dark green of the first kit.

And then a camouflage scheme. What will it become?

Well, something like this.

And in this coloursetting.

First I made a test with three red-brownish colours. And I chose the middle one: Humbrol 160

The camouflage pattern applied.

From another perspective

And I painted all details: tools, periscopes, spare track links, etc. On pictures of Ferdinands at Kursk it can be seen that the shield protecting he main gun ball-mount is painted in a single dark colour. I chose for red oxide primer.

In my experience weathering is, together with scratchbuilding, the most fun part of AFV modelling. If it works out you can change the appearance of your model from a shiny plastic toy into something looking quite realistically.

So, let's go!

The starting point: hard colours and a gloss finish.

First a filter of sand coloured oil paint was applied to tone down the contrast between the sand and the brown. A new layer of gloss was applied to protect the filter.

Then some diluted dark brown oil paint sloshed over the model as a point wash.

Here the excess oil paint is wiped away, so it only remains in corners, nooks and crannies, in recessed detail and around raised detail. Visually this point wash creates shadow and thus brings depth to the model.

After the point wash a drybrush with a very light sand colour and white. This creates highlights on raised detail, increasing the suggestion depth. The grilles of the engine ventilation were filled with a wash of very matte black gouache.

Some chipping with a very soft graphite pencil.

Then mud was added around the wheels with different shades of brown and khaki enamel paint.

And some mine explosion damage around the blown off left front roadwheel. Chips and soot.

Everything protected with two layers of matt varnish.

Some details on top of the vehicle.

Some details on the front.

And a comparison before and after. Nice to see what difference it makes.

Contrary to the old Esci kit, this Italeri reboxing is equpped with link & length tracks. Although they miss detail on the inside, they look much better than the vinyl tracks. But L&L tracks are also difficult to place, and I do not have much experience with them. So this is a challenge for me.

I painted and weathered the tracks on the sprue. I doubted about that, as they might be more difficult to glue together after painting. On the other side it would be impossible to reach the tracks for painting and weathering when they are on the model.

All track parts separated from the sprue and cleaned up where necessary. This was quite a meditative task.

I started with the individual track links around the sprocket wheels. That's why I left the sprocket wheels off until now. In this way I can better reach the wheels and I can turn them slightly to position them in the best way. Nevertheless it is quite difficult to line the track links up neatly and flat around the sprocket wheels. I doubted if I should have removed the tooth, but in the end I didn't, because the tooth are protruding nicely through the tracks now.

Right side ready. Track sag worked out very good, but the links around the sprocket wheels are not perfect.

On its legs.

But on the left side I want to do something else. Mine damage. Inspired by this picture:The track is broken left front below and is sort of wrinkled up over the road wheels. That's a nice aspect of L&L tracks. They enable you to simulate this kind of things, which is impossible with vinyl tracks.

Ah, no.! Left track have loose a lot of air pressure. You need urgent a service team.Ask mickey mouse for the German bunker troop.They are unchallenged.They can be transferred with the sailing ship in "Opfer für Neptun" Dio.

I decided to make a base for this vehicle too, in order to give an explanation for the broken track. For this base I will use another approach than for the earlier one.

A cheap photoframe as a starting point. You can see the size.

Sealed with PVA glue

While the PVA glue was curing I made two small test-dio's in jar lids. With the first one I tried to be smart to dilute the plaster with dark brown water paint. But first because the plaster was so white it didn't become dark brown, but strawberry yoghurt pink. And second, the plaster wouldn't cure because of the paint. So this method doesn't work. Then I made a second attempt using normal water. When the plaster was half cured I made tracks and a crater, and roughened the surface with some tools. This works, so now let's try that for real.

I poured the liquid plaster very carefully in the photoframe, until it started to bulge over the edges.

Then when the plaster was half cured, I pressed in the Ferdinand, made tracks marks and a crater, and roughened the surface.